Miranda Hart - 'I always knew I’d get married at 51'

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0:26Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that redefines failure as a stepping stone on our path to learning how to succeed. before we move on with proceedings i'd love to quickly remind you about our special subscriber bonus podcast failing with friends this is where my guest kindly stays a few minutes more to become agony aunt or uncle or non-binary advice giver and we chat about you and your failures your questions anything you've emailed in about that particular week here's a bit of miranda as a taster. Do you fart in front of your partner? Are you being serious? Yep. Oh, that's genius. Absolutely.

1:04It's the funniest thing ever. Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes, and you can send me an email or look out for my call outs once a month on Instagram for short form questions. Thank you so much. And now back to Miranda. My guest today created a comedic example of failure that became one of the most beloved sitcom characters of the last 20 years The semi-autobiographical Miranda, which aired on the BBC from 2009 to 2015 featured a lovable, socially inept lead who frequently found herself in awkward situations The show spoke to millions who also felt they never entirely fitted in and won its creator, Miranda Hart, three Royal Television Society Awards.

1:55Hart went on to appear in Call the Midwife as chummy and in movies including Emma with Anya Taylor-Joy and Spy alongside Melissa McCarthy, who described her co-star as one of the funniest people I've ever met. Despite her on-screen good cheer and specifically British brand of dust-yourself-off humour, off-screen heart faced serious challenges. As she reveals in her new book, I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You, behind the scenes she was struggling with an undiagnosed chronic health condition that resulted in spells of housebound exhaustion and pain. The book opens with heart's collapse, both physical and emotional, and charts a challenging decade during which she looked for answers and came up with a manual for living.

2:45Along the way, she did finally receive a diagnosis of Lyme's disease and, spoiler alert, she fell in love with the man who is now her husband. Yes, but perhaps more importantly, with herself. My greatest achievement, she writes, is learning to be kind and compassionate to myself. Put another way, less palatable and easily misconstrue, but I shall say it anyway, my greatest achievement has been falling in love with myself. Miranda Hart, welcome to How to Fail. Oh, thanks. What a lovely introduction. What a lovely book. Oh, thank you. I'm still, as I remember the next sentence after that, I'm slightly cringing it there, I've fallen in love with myself.

3:28And I did do a little kind of... You did a British contraction. I still do a British middle class contraction. Actually, I really wanted to ask you about that because the book is so generous and really takes the reader by the hand. You talk to the reader throughout what you're writing and you've clearly done so much of your own research guided by needing to find the answers yourself. And a lot of it is about self-compassion and self-love. A lot of things that we traditionally think of as quite American and sort of therapeutic. which I'm a big fan of by the way how much did you have to dismantle your British stiff upper lip to write it?

4:14Well firstly I think you're right in that I did how the book started was that I needed answers for myself so I did have to sort of demystify and kind of simplify this whole wellness expertise that's out there which is amazing it's out there that we've got access to these scientists and neuroscientists or the ists as I call them in the book and so yeah it was me sort of it is me talking the reader through what what I've learned and what are the sort of 10 keys or the 10 treasures as I call them that kind of simplified all that talk and all that discourse and part of yeah what I learned was how much of my I mean obviously I think hopefully people all from whatever background or whatever difficulty they're going through will get something from it from the treasures but for me a lot of it was going gosh that middle class background of keep, calm, carry on, that stiffness, that just be positive and upbeat, you know, don't show weakness, whatever that means, vulnerability.

5:12I really had to dismantle a lot of that. Not to research so much, but realise, oh my gosh, that is part of possibly what leads to chronic conditions, certainly keeps them going. So yeah, it was a big wake up call to many things, but definitely that. I wonder if we could talk about Miranda, the character, because she is so beloved by so many millions, including me. Where does the character Stop and you, Miranda Hart, start? Oh, God, that's a good question. Weirdly, a question I haven't been asked for about 10 years and probably couldn't answer then. I haven't thought about to this very moment. I always used to say that she was...

5:51When did I write her? When I was in my mid-30s. Mid, late 30s. I always used to say then she was the 20-something me. So in your 20s, you really don't know what you're doing. Well, I didn't. No, me neither. I didn't know who I was and what was going on. I was sort of trying to fit in, trying to belong, bumbling, tall, gangly. It wasn't the perfect woman. All this nonsense you're supposed to fit in. So I think I always felt sort of a decade removed from her, if that makes sense. But actually her journey was to accept and learn to be herself. And she got there in the finale when she married her best friend.

6:28and I thought back then that I'd done that myself I thought I knew and accepted myself what the decades since with illness and the time to reflect and have stillness well that was my only option being bed and house band often for months on end was that I realized oh I was further away from that than I thought so it's been a huge privilege to think that my on-screen Miranda maybe got there first before me but now I've caught up does that make any sense it made total sense and I think it's really beautiful and I relate in so many ways in that I got divorced in my mid-30s and then I thought I'd learned all of the lessons that I needed to apply next time into my new relationship and I hadn't I was actually using the new relationship as a kind of emotional scaffolding as much as I didn't realize I was doing it and I was in love with him and stuff.

7:23But when that relationship ended, it really forced me to confront the truth of myself. And sometimes we need these crises. Well, I think that's what the midlife crisis ultimately is, isn't it? It's going, oh, I didn't know who I was until now. So emptiness syndrome, divorce, whatever, you're suddenly on your own. But what I'm passionate about is how much the blooming world shouts at us for so many reasons. It's so loud. It's so noisy. It tells us, still tells us how to look, how many steps to do a day now, for goodness sake, how to be fit, how to be healthy. It says be busy, busy, busy, accrue, success, achievement.

8:02It's just shouting at us in so many ways. Don't be vulnerable, be upbeat and positive all the time. Fix, help. And as a silly creative person who wrote Miranda and was a little bit Miranda, I didn't think that I'd fallen into that trap I had. And in that context, although I know you said you were given no option because of your illness, but it's very brave to take 10 years out. And I wonder how fearful you were of that. Very well resisted it a lot because initially it was pre-diagnosis. So I had a few, about five years before a full understanding of the diagnosis. And in fact, was told countlessly for sort of decades, because I hadn't felt well for since teenage years, that it was just anxiety and stress.

8:49I don't know why just was, you know, as in two weeks off and you'll be fine. So then I kept trying to go back to work. I was thinking, well, if I'm not physically unwell or that run down, then maybe work will help. so I did a bit of work in the first five years but ultimately just completely collapsed and then I knew there was something that was undiagnosed and that's when I knew I couldn't work and it was really it it wasn't I wasn't fearful because I had no choice but so the fear comes I think when you have choice of pre-diagnosis of whether to keep going whether to not because you feel so awful but you've got to keep going and be on set and it's your face you can't just take time out you know it's a precious situation um so it was but it was so it wasn't fear-making it was just very disappointing and I just missed it so much and I sort of lost my identity a bit initially with who am I without work because it's been such a huge part of my life as it can be for many could you just explain Lyme's disease to the uninitiated I got a tick tick bite we since discovered probably when I was 14 or 15 in America and you can have a sort of flu-like feeling very run down high temperature but you haven't seen that it's a clear tick bite yeah it's basically a tick-borne infection and it can lead to quite severe neurological things like loss of concentration and memory and um it screws with your immune and nervous system basically.

10:21And it means you can never sort of fully recover? No, so it becomes then a kind of ME. That's ultimately what ME becomes, is that you get an initial infection and long COVID, same. You could get COVID, you could get any virus or infection and your immune system just never fully recovers. So you feel like you have flu every day, but yet you don't, you don't have temperature. And so it's very hard to get a diagnosis. And you're often, as we were talking about, dismissed by the mainstream medical establishment, particularly one might say men, I imagine. And tell us about TAT. TAT, oh gosh, yeah, that was, I mean, my heart just goes out to anyone listening who's got chronic illness, particularly ME and chronic fatigue, because what I think the hardest thing about it for me was the bit misjudged and misunderstood, by far.

11:11I kept saying, if someone told me what I've got, what the management plan is, what the pill I take or not take, you know, what I do, I can cope. That's where the resilience can come in. It's the not knowing and the being misunderstood. And this doctor I went to, he said to me, he was sort of being grumpy when I was telling this doctor, I'm going, I just, I just feel like I'm going to collapse. I just feel really unwell. What's going to happen? And he looked like he was listening, but I wasn't sure. And then he wrote down something on top of my notes and I said oh what did you write and I and he was like a bit like well I'm not going to tell you sort of thing I was like tell me what you think's wrong with me and my body and I looked at his notes and it said tat t-a-t-t I said what's tat and he went it's um code for tired all the time so I said you're just putting tat the end of my note but that and I remember saying to him if I was just a bit tired and recovered after night's sleep and got through I wouldn't be here sitting complaining you know tears were welling up and he literally then just went I don't know what else to say to you there's nothing wrong with you look I've got your blood to and got properly cross with me and I just ran out in floods it's awful I'm so sorry well I mean it when someone's like I know it's not necessarily an individual's responsibility I mean it is but it's not necessarily his fault, but the gaslighting on this sort of grand scale of particularly women's pain and experience is a very difficult thing.

12:41It's really hard. And I thought, you know, hopefully that has gone away. I mean, I'm sure it's better and better now, particularly with the talk of long COVID and Emmy and where it's coming from and much more understanding about these chronic pain and fatigue conditions. but Kirstie Young had recently said that only I think four years ago she was told oh fibromyalgia that's not a thing she's like but I can't really sort of move because actually women predominantly get these conditions which is interesting in itself maybe because of the years of gaslighting on various other things we're so flipping run down our body is going to eventually scream so yeah yeah I just I just hope that's better now I really do let's get on to your failures your first failure is failure to be a farmer's wife yes very very important I don't know why you're laughing well first of all I find it intriguing that it's being a farmer's wife rather than being a farmer yeah yeah well again this was can I first say let me just yes can I defend myself absolutely all your internalized misogyny yes exactly you know the question what did you want to be when you were younger?

13:54I love that question because I think it's a great portal to, so what are you missing out on now? Because I think our younger selves often know the answer what we want to be. And so if we're tired or in a midlife crisis or lacking joy in our life, go back to that question and think, actually, is there anything in that? So one of the things I wanted to be was a comedian. The other thing I wanted to be was Wim Wimbledon. And I also wanted to be a farmer's wife. So I obviously also was very wise when I was young and thinking, I know that farming is one of the hardest industries and jobs. So I won't be the farmer.

14:31I'll be the farmer's wife. To me, what that meant was collecting the eggs from the chickens. So basically it's that I wanted chickens. And I think I did visualise myself in a pinny in a country farm cottage, but I was never doing any cooking. Did you listen to the archers? No, no, I listened to the archers. But I had a sheepdog, I definitely, there was a sheepdog involved. Yeah, so I probably did not the harvesting and the serious sort of tractor business. Or the waking up early. Or the waking up early or the accounts or any of that. I just did the sort of fun sheepdog. there were probably goats um small pigs that don't ever turn into big pigs piglets i believe so you can see i was a natural but i wanted the landscape i think i did want to drive a land rover although it's fun sort of not quite not fun they're terrifying okay sorry quad bikes no no it has to be more like a sort of glorified golf buggy talk to me more about the the delight of solitude which I think comes up when you're talking about that and comes up in your book too because I mean I can relate to this as well that curious mishmash of introversion and extroversion because you're clearly a very capable and talented performer thank you you put your face out there and your name and it's sort of a version of you yeah I can do that but I think I'm getting from you that you are actually more introverted than you ever allowed yourself to be would that be fair well first ever knew that I was what did that come from knew that I was no I didn't realize I was an introvert see that's one of the things I think the world I don't know know now but it did when I was growing up I don't know if you relate to this although you are younger than I but it was still maybe pre-Susan Kane's book Quiet coming out.

16:34Amazing book. Amazing book that it was still better to get ahead again I'm putting that in verticals what does that mean? If you are extroverted, loud, out there, positive, upbeat, you know wise, clever and where was the celebration or the acceptance or the encouragement of the shire child who might be the contemplative and the still one and needs to work with no music in the background and all the things I've learned about myself that I was in a world that was too noisy for me and because I didn't know I was introverted because I tried to be an extrovert because that's what I was taught culturally and then when I realized it probably only 10 years ago this weight just lifted off I thought of course so one of the reasons to be to say I'm a failed farmer's wife is I think because I was forced into an urban environment that was just too much for my nervous system ultimately.

17:33Yeah. But actually I think I could do that urban environment now with the knowledge of being an introvert and a highly sensitive person if I took the time for stillness. I need a day a week to not speak. That's kind of one of my little rules. I like to socialise in small groups very intentionally. I get exhausted by a big night out. But all that stuff as a 20-something university or as a teenager, you don't feel that that's allowed. Or I didn't. And so I'm forced to become another way and become also very productive, which I love, it's definitely part of me, but not without the degree of stillness and contemplation and peace and space and countryside that I need.

18:20And so it's just so freeing to now. And this is why I'm so passionate about my book and why I wrote it. If the 20-something me could read this and go, do you want to have a little think about whether actually you are an introvert, how much it would have helped. And I'm sure one of the reasons why I got so fatigued, my immune system got funky, was because I was trying to be something that I was not. So, yeah, I think a farmer's wife was a way to escape from the noise. I completely get all of that because I always knew I wanted to be a writer and I thought well to get into writing I've got to be a journalist first so I went into journalism and I am an introvert but I was pitched headlong into this world where I had to bowl up to people at parties I was on the diary column at the evening standard and ask famous people questions and it was so nerve-wracking and exhausting and this is the thing that you identify so exhausting and hang Hang on, I'm going to do a burp.

19:14Okay, go ahead. I'm so sorry. That'll be a social media clip. That's just classic. Down the line again, apologies for the burp. Slightly sweaty upper lips because I've had tea. And you were in the middle of talking about you. Yeah. Maybe it was because I didn't want it to be about you. Yeah, which is totally fair enough and it shouldn't be. You're interviewing me. Who do you think you are, Elizabeth Day? But it relates to me. No, carry on. No, it's fascinating. It's absolutely that exhaustion because I think I became a sort of socially conditioned like a high functioning introvert who could assume the mantle of extroversion, but it always came at a cost of energy.

19:50Yes. And now I'm at a stage in my life, which is exactly the stage that you write about in the book, where I don't know if I want to see anyone. Well, exactly. But how do we, how do you manage that? Because how do you manage friendships? Very, very intentionally. So A, I trust that they're there if I don't see them for two years. b i don't think you can have a hundred really really close friends that's exhausting in itself particularly as a i mean i i think even my very extroverted friends would say that's not really that possible and i've sort of really thought okay how do i like socializing because i hate dinner parties i hate formal so i think actually the favorite way for me as long as they're as long as my friends are happy to socialize is things like round a campfire or getting people over to what's strictly and chatting for an hour and a half before and throughout I don't like small talk if people have got if people want to share something with me I want to ask something so it's about intentionality for me and trusting they're there because I think I did a lot of I must keep up I must see her must see him must do that for fear that they were for fear that that was the good and nice thing to do and that they won't be there if I don't but now I have full trust that they're there that they'll tell me if they need to see me and then the intentional the intentional way to gather for maybe so did you lose friends over your illness over that protracted period of not being able to keep up well amazingly now I'm reconnecting now I have the health to reconnect and um I realized I didn't lose them but they lost me completely because I I had no choice but to isolate.

21:35A, I was shielding before the word shielding existed because even if I got a cold when I was working, that would be me out for six to eight weeks and I wouldn't know why. So I had to be very careful who I was around. I couldn't work and socialise. So there was many years even before illness where I wasn't really available for them. So they definitely lost me. And then one of the things I mentioned in the book that I found, didn't realise I found so difficult, was asking for help so then when I wasn't practiced at that so that then when I became ill I didn't know how to say help particularly when you don't have a diagnosis and I was so exhausted I just didn't want to see anyone so I've got amazing friends because I did stick around and I'm reconnecting with them with them now and it's like we haven't had 10 years apart and that's sign of good friendship one of your best friends during this time was peggy your beloved dog oh and i talked i wanted to talk about peggy because it relates to this idyllic existence as a farmer's wife because so much of it is about being surrounded by animals yeah instead of humans well i think us introverts and definitely i keep saying this word highly sensitive people have you come across that term hsp yes so if you haven't looked up because if if you are one it makes a huge difference how to manage energy in life but um and we make the best people obviously a hundred percent what do you ask me oh so we are very attuned with animals we love animals we love that calm simple energy because basically i'll stop saying we i can only speak for myself I think what I realise in a serious matter about animals is that the connection I love most is just sitting in a room with someone and you don't have to speak yes and that's you feel utterly loved utterly accepted and you have to make no effort you're just you and that's what a dog gives you I mean obviously it's what lots of animals give you but we tend to have don't have pet llamas I have a cat and he gives me that cat yeah fine exactly I used to have a cat all right it's not a competition no until I until I realized I was mildly allergic to that I couldn't understand why I kept sort of coughing it took me about 20 years anyway but that's exactly cats and dogs they you just look at them and it makes you want to cry you just feel so you get in at the end of the day I mean even if I had somebody and wasn't single I think I would have gone straight to the dog for that love first it's an unconditional present they're also completely present and I think I think that's what everybody needs that non-judgmental presence loving presence but even more so as a introvert and highly sensitive person do you have pets now I do so so I Peggy died early oh gosh I can't remember which year but during the pandemic which was the worst time so then I was completely alone and that led to I mean it's all in the book what I learning but gosh the kind of hefty blessing blessing in disguise of having to dig deep without Peggy so it was about just under a year later that I got Patty a friend happened to tell I love the way random things happen a friend happened to text me and said isn't it time you get a new dog it's about 10 months and I said yes but I'm so exhausted where do I begin looking I don't know what breed and as we were texting she said look at this link I found this thing called a Pouchon and it's in Portsmouth, which is near my parents where I was staying during the pandemic.

25:09And it was this little fluffy sort of sandy ball of poodley fur, hypoallergenic, thank you. And I went, that's it, yeah. And my sister went down and had a look at now Patty, the Pouchon from Portsmouth. Six weeks later, she was in my arms, this tiny ball of fluff. So I now have Patty. Is a Pouchon a poodle and a Bichon freeze? Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. So Peggy was a Bichon freeze shih tzu, or a shitty freeze as I called her. And now I've got a Pouchon. So there's a little theme there. But yeah, but it's interesting how I don't need Patty in quite the same way as I needed Peggy, which means I'm much more generally connected in real life.

25:53And you've got married. And because I have a husband to look into his adoring eyes. It's early days. It's still early days. Which I have to say is such a beautiful part of the book. And you plot it so perfectly. Oh, coming from you, that means a lot. You saying coming from me means a lot to me. And the loop of love just keeps on going. It's so wonderful. And I don't want to ruin anything for the reader because you reveal at the end something about how you met. Yes. Just tell us about that because you always had a feeling, didn't you, that you were going to get married at 51? Yeah. yeah so bizarre so maybe I will be a farmer's wife he's not a farmer so I can't be otherwise I have to get oh that's all gone wrong um so yeah I remember that was in my sort of 20s and I remember when everyone was sort of all my girlfriends was talking about marriage and sort of wanting the big wedding and the white dress and all that and I was like I don't relate to any of you I just wasn't interested at all I don't know why I don't know whether because I had this interest in comedy whatever um and I remember always thinking I think the perfect time to get married would be 51 because by then you'd want to sort of inject some new energy and excitement into life all your friends will be 20 30 years into marriage and you'd be like yay I'm starting again you'd know who you were it just felt right for me did you know you didn't want children no no it just sort of never came I think I was focused in my 20s and early 30s thinking I'm just going to try this comedy thing I mean obviously it's not going to happen knew I wasn't interested in the white dress and getting married unless it was to a farmer yeah priorities farmer and so I just was focused on well let's just live in London see what happens with the comedy thing.

27:50And then it took off. So then I was just like, well, I'm not going to let a boy ruin this. I seem to be doing something here. And so, yeah, that's just what took over and said.

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29:09the reason i'm about to ask you this question is not because i'm a sort of gender reductionist and it's because of my personal journey yet again all about herself in that i don't have children and i tried and failed so that's what you asked the children yeah but i'm very at peace with the fact that i don't have children yeah and i and i think it's really healthy for people to hear stories of fully realised women who aren't mothers in the conventional sense. Yes. Well, another thing the world shouts at us, isn't it? You know, get married by 35. I was old, apparently. It's still now. You've got to have your life together at age 30.

29:48What's all this nonsense? The desire for me never happened. I would have this odd flicker of thinking, I think I'd make a good mum. And there's occasional flicker of sadness that I can't impart what I've learnt or I can't share something with someone or just experience what that's like that was just flickers of intrigue rather than an overwhelming maternal desire for children which you must have had and I didn't because I didn't even consider going down the route and I always thought I'm going to be quite happy without kids so it just wasn't just very maybe it was just never meant to be like I remember on the set of Call the Midwife these fantastic costume and makeup ladies and I noticed that quite a lot of them hadn't had children and I asked them about that and they said I feel so fulfilled in who I am I have roles as being a godmother or a stepmother or I'm invested in my work and my friendships in a way and I thought yeah I'm so lucky that I've never felt that pressure or that lack as somebody who you know we've all got a purpose and we're all uniquely wired.

30:57And maybe it just, you know, I wasn't meant to have children. That's not where my energy was meant to go. I don't know. Also, I imagine, call the midwife. It's enough to put you off going through birth because those birth scenes... Quite full on. Yes. Particularly when you're handling a 10-day-old baby slathered in baby oil and not ketchup or whatever the equivalent was for blood. and you had to deliver it and then you're trying to do the acting whilst also thinking the mother of this tiny newborn is watching on the screen. I could easily drop this thing. I mean, there's a lot going on. Wow. And you've got to pretend you know what you're doing.

31:41How do you even get a 10-day-old baby? Are they signed up to actors' agencies? Yes, now you think, why have I not questioned that before? I think there was too much going on at that moment. Yes, fair enough. They must have gone round hospitals, mustn't they? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Does anyone want their newborn to be in a show? Yeah. I mean, it's a good show to be in. Yeah, the first two is they didn't know that. True. Can I just say, though, on a serious note, that idea of imparting wisdom and advice, I actually think with your book, it's an act of mothering, if that's not too much of an overstep.

32:20I felt very mothered reading it. Well, no, I do say, and I policed myself because I resisted saying you mother in other ways, but you do. It does feel like my main creative gifts in this book, being one and Miranda being those two being the main, do feel like, yeah, my act of mothering. Yes. Let's get on to your second failure, which is failed athlete. Yes. So you were pretty good at sport and sprinting and all sorts at school Yeah, so it's really weird because I got into the public eye when I'd put on a huge amount of weight and was clowning And so if ever I said I was a failed athlete, people would just laugh, understandably Because they didn't know when I was, yeah, mid-late teens, I was an athlete I was a lacrosse player at school and had county lacrosse I think maybe at one point England, my memory is so short, Lyme disease, see, but definitely was county level and then it was a sprint, it was a very, very fast sprinter and it was just sport, being an athlete was my absolute passion, I think it's back to freedom, freedom of movement, obviously tall, lean, I was also very good at tennis and I wanted to be a professional athlete that's all I could think of doing and I had this opportunity it was a good public school I think a lot of people well hopefully it's not just public schools but a lot of people migrate to those schools to scouts to to look for athletes somebody came up to me having seen me sprint the 100 meters and said oh I'm from a scouting we're a club in Southampton and you've definitely you've absolutely got potential would you like to come and train for free this summer and I was wide, I was like, God, this is my absolute dream.

34:11My parents don't live far from Southampton. Then he said to me, bearing in mind this is 1985, you will have to strap down your breasts, to which I was so scared and so horrified, I just ran away. I never told anyone about it, and that to me feels like a real, I feel like I failed myself there because there could have been a way around that. If I told an adult about that, they would have said, you should come and do the training, talk us through the breast things, we won't be doing that. So I feel really sad that I missed that opportunity. And then life circumstances, after school and whatever, illness, putting on weight, I just lost that side of me.

34:50And I feel, it pains me actually. And it's interesting to get in touch with now because in the last three years, I'm probably the biggest I've ever been weight wise, which I hate to say I don't have a problem with what I'm dealing with, it not being a problem in terms of bigger is lesser pun but just because it's not me I feel uncomfortable and it's difficult to manage and deal with it's just not my athletic lean frame so I'm deep I'm really in touch again with this the sadness of putting on weight in my 20s and losing that athleticism and not keeping up sport and not keeping that up because it's It feels like such an inherent part of who I am.

35:33I love that movement, that energy, the connection with team sports. I love mastering things. Could have been good at tennis. So, yeah, I feel really sad that I miss that. Yes, because it's losing your identity. And the way you present in the world is really important if you feel that it doesn't accurately reflect who you are. Well, it was then hard to then sort of getting into telly. big I mean I was still I think Miranda would have worked if I'd still been thin in my natural way I still would have been the bumbling idiot but you then sort of presenting yourself in a yeah you do feel like you're presenting not quite who you are and people would joke would laugh if I said I was an athlete which always really hurt me of course that's so hurtful but I'll tell you what I'm learning from it now which I would say to my 20 something younger self who who put on weight for illness and other reasons is actually because it's what I'm having to learn now with this weight gain it's not the yes the external how you present is important but it's not the most important thing the key is to know and find out who you are without any of the external identifying you which is what happened to me in my illness there was nothing I was bed and housebound on and off a year so there was I couldn't work I couldn't socialize I couldn't you know from whatever tell stories I couldn't move I couldn't go on adventures I couldn't go on holidays I had I lost my home at one point that there was nothing by worldly measurement to go this is who I am and it's incredibly humbling and terrifying but if you find out who you are beyond that there is a freedom and meaning and joy to life that I don't think I ever would have found without it.

37:21So actually, being who I am, whilst being big and not an athlete, is a very humbling privilege, actually, because I can really focus on the most important things about me. It's actually making me feel a bit teary. It's so powerful what you're saying and how you're saying it. Thank you. Well, I just think, and when I first put on this weight recently, midlife hormones and happy fat due to a blame husband because when you first meet someone you end up eating a lot and going out and getting takeaways and all that but yeah hormones midlife ultimately and becoming deconditioned due to chronic illness the initial shame I felt about it the initial embarrassment I thought oh gosh I'm going back to work after 10 years I can present really differently and I'm going to be fat which I know is fine but it's not me so it didn't feel fine but now it is becoming fine and I just think anyone who feels lesser for any reason whether it's weight gain whether it's because they don't feel they have the right job the right relationship by this certain age whether they're an introvert and they don't want to whatever reason it's I just so passionately believe that we are inherently valuable and worthwhile and loved and that's our purpose to love and to be loved and nothing else matters you know this this I mean some people might say that my rumbling huge roly-poly tummy is the best part of me but it's not you know our bodies are not the best part of us the external our jobs aren't the best part of us I actually want to pick you up there on the language you use to talk about yourself because there's a part in the book where you say how important words and labels are so you label Lyme disease differently you label your fatigue differently yeah it's that sort of work in progress because just then you sounded pretty critical about yourself what the way I said fat the way you said your huge rumbling tummy yeah that's just me going to an obvious joke because I thought that that that literally just what's comedy, honestly.

39:28As defence mechanism, Miranda? No, not as defence mechanism. Because I'm genuinely learning that my body's not what's important. And then I thought the joke is that, well, somebody might think this is the most important part of me. It was hilarious, Elizabeth. Thank you for explaining the joke to me. I'm so sorry. I was like so in my emotions after the exquisite thing you just said. It just shows that the comedian does always ruin it if they go there. I'm sorry. I know, it's all in the delivery. But do you tell us about how important it is the way we talk to ourselves and the fact that we're not our brain-generated anxious thoughts.

40:00Yeah, well, I mean, you know all about this, the inner critic, but oh my gosh. And I think we, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we all have one, but I think we all have one to varying degrees. Mine was pretty nasty and she's now under control. Yeah, mine's worse than yours. See, that's me doing an inner critic. classic um but yeah those thoughts of well any I should or could be better thoughts or hitting the pillow I didn't do that right you didn't do that best you're not as good as that person you should be better by now all those sort of inner critical thoughts they're so much more damaging than I think we ever realized that to to that I would never want to scare someone to think oh my gosh I have that in a critic am I damaging myself because a you can rewire away from it but yeah just to start to begin to listen how you talk about yourself or think about yourself more importantly having that moment of stillness to write down your kind of top line thoughts but yeah taking out I mean I think I used to say the word gangly or goofy to kind of apologize for myself all the time.